


Scars

by sallyamongpoison



Series: Thedas Wasteland AU [4]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, M/M, Scars, Thedas Wasteland AU, mention of attempted kidnapping, mention of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-03 01:18:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5271152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallyamongpoison/pseuds/sallyamongpoison
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dorian contemplates a few of Cullen's scars as well as his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars

Night was a dangerous time. It was dangerous because a lot of things went bump in it, for good or ill, and it wasn’t difficult to recognize the fact that most people got more than a little anxious once the sun went down. Ranks pulled tighter, fires burned higher, and more people were posted to keep watch. It was good sense, yes, but it was that primal fear that came out once the moons did as well.

For Dorian, the night got his hackles up. It didn’t matter that they’d made it to their destination and were safer than they’d been at any checkpoint or camp. There was something about the darkness, even punctuated by firelight and people walking around outside their room, that made him nervous. Darkness had never been good to him. Not really. Something had always been lurking in the darkness for as long as he could remember and Dorian just…he much preferred to be somewhere well lit and loud than somewhere dark and quiet.

Cullen was the opposite. He seemed to love sleeping in near silence with only a few candles burning should one of them need to get up in the night. Dorian chalked that up to his farm boy upbringing: a little colony in Honnleath that was as tight knit as anything Dorian had ever seen. They cared, cared enough now to even send birds inquiring about Cullen…and now Dorian too. It had been so disconcerting the first few times Dorian had tagged along with the Fereldan. He’d never known what it was like to sleep both so rough or so quiet since he’d come South from the Ruined Imperium.

Still, in their little room that they’d been given, Cullen compromised by letting Dorian light as many candles as he dared so long as they didn’t burn the house down, and they curled up on the creaking brass bed that had real sheets and blankets on it. That was luxury now. It didn’t keep Dorian from curling up against Cullen’s back while the other man snored softly on his side, though. When things got dark he liked having Cullen’s strong bulk close to him. It made him feel safe.

Lying there, candlelight flickering just bright enough for their skin to almost glow, Dorian let his gaze wander over Cullen’s back. The man was pale like milk, but sadly not as pristine. One hand lifted to trace a puckered scar just under his shoulder blade, and Dorian frowned. Cullen was littered with those, though mostly in the places his cobbled armor had gaps. Still, he had long rake marks from wolf claws and the odd knife here and there. Dorian had only heard stories about some of them, but had seen a few happen in real time then heal up until they were pink and raised then white and as much a part of Cullen as anything else.

He counted them when he needed to. Dorian knew every scar on Cullen’s body. He’d brushed his fingers over each one, gently kissed them, and tried to offer retroactive comfort. At the time, Cullen had been confused, had tried to brush Dorian away, but eventually Dorian’s need to know him won him over. Dorian needed to catalogue every scratch, scrape, scar, bump, and bruise on Cullen so he could know immediately if the man had been hurt. Cullen tolerated it at first, seemed to enjoy it more now, and seemed to smile when Dorian would kiss at his sore spots. Cullen did much the same when Dorian was hurting too, and he loved it.

_“They tried to take my sisters.”_

Dorian remembered asking about the one on Cullen’s face. His lip. The scar that bisected Cullen’s lip was certainly rugged and handsome, but the story behind it…Dorian’s blood still went cold thinking about it. Cullen’s face when he told the story, so blank and instructive ike he was explaining drill, had been unnerving. The only indication to any other emotion had been Cullen’s hand tightening in a fist in the grass they’d been sitting in. Dorian heard the sound of grass being ripped up by the root, and he’d looked from Cullen’s hand to his face as he spoke.

_“Slavers wanted them. My parents were at a meeting and they’d snuck in the perimeter while everyone was at the main hall.”_

He was sixteen, almost a man, and watching his younger sisters and brother as acting Man in Charge. It should have been a routine kind of night with no issues and the kids sleeping peacefully.

_“I heard her yelp and like someone was struggling, and when I went in hers and Mia’s room they were almost out the window with the girls knocked out and slung over their shoulders.”_

Dorian had almost told him to stop, wanted to cover his ears with his hands in case it didn’t end well. The thought of two girls, Mia at almost seventeen and Rosalie a baby at five, stolen in the night like crops or cattle. It mad Dorian sick.

_“I never killed anyone before that. My father let me shoot targets, practice for when I was old enough to do more than chores around the farm, and I just…went after them. I don’t even know what I grabbed to hurt them with, but…”_

The way Cullen’s mother told the story, which she had at Dorian’s prompting his first time he’d stayed with them a few months after he and Cullen met, ended with them coming home and finding Cullen in the girls’ room with them both and Bran with a few dead bodies and Cullen trying to keep the kids calm. Mia had been knocked out harder since she was the more dangerous one, and both Rosie and Bran had been trying for a while to wake her up. Cullen had taken what was probably something blunt and metal to the mouth for how his lip and gums had been torn up.

Mia was blind in one eye for whatever it was they’d given her. Rosalie, thankfully, suffered no ill effects. That had been what spurred Cullen to join the Templars at eighteen. He wanted to keep anyone from being hurt like his sisters could have been, which had clearly choked up everyone. Cullen’s mother had explained as much to Dorian late one night after Cullen had gone to bed and they were sharing tea in the kitchen like old friends. The bright and shininess of her ears, those tears that hadn’t been shed, told Dorian everything he needed to know.

In retrospect, that may have been the moment he really fell for the man. He liked to call Cullen a knight in shining armor,  _his_  knight in shining armor, and the fact that he’d enlisted in the Templar military order for the love of his sisters? Dorian had actually felt his insides melt.

Dorian’s hand traced Cullen’s hip, fingertips walking along pale skin, as he lost himself if those thoughts. They quieted his fear of the dark. Cullen would protect him. He’d always protected him, even since the day they met. It made him chuckle and he leaned in to press a kiss along the man’s spine just because he could.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Dorian murmured, voice soft enough as to not wake the man beside him, but far away in the memory of the first time he’d heard those words.

His grey eyed gaze fell on a ropey scar that circled just above his elbow and Dorian shivered. They’d been on their first appointment together, checking stores around Haven, and Dorian had accidentally tripped an enemy defense trap. Seemed as though they were stumbling on each other at that point since no one came running as Dorian screamed while razor wire started winding around him.

Being shot at was one thing. Watching his arm nearly be shredded was something else altogether.

Cullen had been there in what felt like both seconds and an eternity, disarmed the trap, and pulled Dorian out of it. He’d almost fainted at all the blood and pain, and Cullen curled him in his arms until he was calm enough to get somewhere that someone could help. The medics had done wonders, especially for how bad it had looked, and Cullen had stayed with him the whole time with a worried expression on his face. Dorian had appreciated it then because he didn’t want to be alone.

Dorian had worried the wound, or possibly an infection from the wound, would kill him. He had a fever for some time, mostly from the trauma, and he’d begged Cullen not to let the Venatori take him back. Cullen had held him close and told him those words while he pet his hair and made him feel safer than he’d ever felt. 

He found out later Cullen felt guilty for getting him hurt.

Cullen found out later than that Dorian had almost emotionally attached himself to the first person who had shown him such kindness since he’d left his home.

Then they’d both found out they were interested in each other.

Dorian wore that angry scar like a badge, a symbol of his new life, and Cullen still traced it with his fingers. That trap had literally thrown them together, but it had also given Dorian purpose as he was able to rebuild and improve the design. That had done enough convincing, after he’d brought a small hoard of Venatori drifters to their gates, that he was useful enough to stay.

Even though Cullen had offered to stand for him should they even try to make him leave. And then Cullen wondered why Dorian fell for him. The fool. The fucking besotted fool.

Now they lay curled up in relative safety, warm and mostly happy in bed, and Dorian could count and feel those scars until he knew them better than his own skin. It was the only thing that calmed him in the dark when all those things, all the things that chased them when they had some time alone, creeped up on him. Once had, once he buried his face in against Cullen’s back again and the man rolled over to wind his arms around Dorian, he could sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come fine me on tumblr! @sallyamongpoison


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